Word: serbian
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...bulldozer" for nothing. Even Washington admits the French President paved the way for the Dayton, Ohio, peace talks by insisting, shortly after his election in May 1995, on the get-tough military posture that finally led to a cease-fire after 3 1/2 years of bloody fighting by Serbian, Muslim and Croatian forces in Bosnia. While Bill Clinton and U.S. negotiator Richard Holbrooke got the credit for orchestrating the final accord, they applauded Chirac's crucial role and agreed to hold the signing ceremony in Paris...
...that day, after Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, Croatian President Franjo Tudjman and Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic had affixed their signatures to the document under the crystal chandeliers of the Elysee Palace, Chirac and Clinton huddled alone in Chirac's second-floor office. The crux of their discussion that evening was what to do about Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander, General Ratko Mladic. A senior French official who had recently returned from Bosnia had convinced Chirac that Mladic and Karadzic still controlled the situation on the ground and could derail the accords at any time...
Perhaps. In the exaggerated mythology of the Balkans, eastern Herzegovina is the hard heart of Serb nationalism. The inhabitants pride themselves on being as inhospitable to interlopers as the rocky soil is to farming. "We see them as occupiers," a local Serbian Orthodox priest says of the NATO troops in the region. Also convenient for Karadzic is the region's extended, porous border with Serbia and Montenegro that provides ample escape routes in case of a snatch attempt. Most important, the entire region is in the French sector of NATO operations in Bosnia. Statistically, that is the safest place...
Milosevic remains evasive, knowing NATO is very reluctant to intervene. The Serbian strongman has only himself to blame for stoking ethnic Albanian resentment. As a Kosovar leader warns, "If Milosevic continues his current policy of negotiating and killing at the same time, there will be no solution other than for everyone to go and join the K.L.A." All too aware of this grim possibility, Holbrooke leaves the dinner with little more than a case of indigestion...
...avoid. In a fierce battle Wednesday, Serb forces ousted the insurgent Kosovo Liberation Army from the coal mining town of Belacevac and prepared for an onslaught on the besieged town of Kijevo -- dubbed "the most dangerous place in Europe" by U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke last week. "A full-scale Serbian offensive against the KLA will force NATO to take action against the Serbs," says TIME correspondent Douglas Waller, who last week accompanied Holbrooke on a futile peace mission in the region. "Although the Serbs could easily squash the KLA, that would trigger a bloody civil war throughout the region...